20 September 2013, 10:03Russia will defend national identity, based on religious values - Putin

Valdai, September 20, Interfax - People will lose their human dignity without values enshrined in Christianity and other world religions, without moral standards that have taken millennia to take shape, President Vladimir Putin.

"We believe that it is natural and appropriate to defend those values. Any minority deserves respect for its distinctive identity, but the rights of the majority must not be questioned," Putin said during a meeting of the Valdai discussion club.

He believes, that Russia can't move forward without cultural and national self-determination. Otherwise the country won't be able to respond to external or internal challenges, can't be successful in global competition.

"Events that take place in the world represent one more serious challenge to the Russian identity. There are foreign policy and moral aspects to this. We have been able to see many Euro-Atlantic countries effectively embark on a path of renouncing their roots, including Christian values, which underlie Western civilization," Putin said.

"That involves the negation of moral principles and any traditional identity - national, cultural, religious, or even sexual," he said.

"Policies are pursued that put large families and same-sex partnerships in the same category, belief in God and belief in Satan. Excesses of political correctness reach the point where there are serious discussions on the registration of parties that have propaganda of pedophilia as their objective. People in many European countries are ashamed and afraid of speaking about their religion, holidays are abolished or given other names, names that shyly conceal the nature of those holidays, and aggressive attempts are made to force this model on the rest of the world," Putin said.

"This is a direct path to degradation and primitiveness, to deep demographic and moral crises," he said.

"What can be a better indication of a moral crisis in human society than its loss of the ability for self-reproduction?" Putin said.